Canyontalia: Firecrackers
by Vysria
Summary: A British-raised, Chinese teen stuck in the American schooling system wouldn't cause any trouble at all. Yeah, hilarious... no. England, what did your magic do this time...


_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

Hong Kong sat up tiredly, rubbing at his eyes. What… he didn't have a meeting today. So why the alarm?

_Beep-beep beep beep. Beep-beep beep beep._

He glared at the hair that had fallen in front of his face. First things first, and what he needed to do first was to get rid of that "bloody God-forsaken racket," as England would call it.

_Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-SLAM!_

His hand came crashing down on a pink digital clock, probably pressing some sort of "sleep" button. Whatever. At least the sound was off.

He squinted at the time. 7:35. Too early in the morning.

Next to the clock were neatly folded clothes (which he never, ever did), which contained certain female essential underclothes. (He wasn't stupid, nor an ignorant preteen.)

Wait a moment.

Looking down at himself, he noticed that, well, to put it frankly, he was a girl now. Okay. Okay. He could deal with this. Bombing the place should do the trick.

He shrugged off the blue fleece pullover (suggesting a colder climate), leaving him in a tank top (not too different from his own sleeping habits) and shorts (maybe the weather wasn't that cold, then).

Changing into the clothes that were laid out, he came to a very important conclusion.

A wardrobe change was very much needed here.

That would have to wait, as he heard a shout of "Crystal, hurry up and brush your teeth!" and determined that schedules were tight. He could think about this later.

* * *

Hong Kong followed the stream of students into the school campus, wondering if this was really necessary for someone who was over a hundred years old.

It was, to keep up appearances.

One part of him wanted to screw appearances, but the other part that had been subjected to England's upbringing told him to "get off your lazy arse and do some bloody work", which wasn't very motivational but reminded him off his current predicament.

He was in the body of a young teen girl named Crystal (apparently. Like he cared.) who was in the 8th grade. Secondary – no wait, middle school. Americans were hard to understand. Now, if he had been sent to Hogwarts for a repeated magical education that wouldn't be so bad.

For one, everyone there had to wear the same un-fabulous clothes, so if you didn't look good, no else there did either.

Here, it was a looser dress code, and he was stuck wearing unfashionable clothes and trying to avoid the range of sight of the obviously popular girls.

He needed to go to the mall really soon.

In the midst of his thoughts, he ran into a girl who seemed to know Crystal (he replied with simply a "hi" and maintained the silent side of the conversation) who led him towards a large group of people (mostly Asians, but this isn't a racist place so it wasn't exclusive).

He didn't say anything, choosing to observe the students around them, and noticed a girls doing almost exact same thing as he was. Except, you know, she was staring at him kinda weirdly.

"Hello?" he asked. Receiving no response, he opted for the more sarcastic path.

"Are you, like, going to just stare at me all day like some lesbian pervert, or actually talk to me?" This startled the girl, as no one liked to be accused of perverseness. No one but France, and that was only because denying it was too much trouble, or so it seemed.

The girl stuttered and stammered, causing the words to all slur together in a weird blur of syllables. Hm. Where had he heard that type of speech before?

"Sorry… I'm a little… out of it right now…"

"Teacher already gets drunk with his friends, and he acts like that when he does. You're underage, you know?" he deadpanned, forgetting that the humans here did not know who he was and who "Teacher" was. The girl's eyes shifted back and forth nervously.

"Hi, Crystal!" The girl (maybe he should actually bother to learn her name) turned to face the newcomer with no small amount of relief, though showing no signs of recognition. Hong Kong was now tasked with the challenge of acting like Crystal good enough to convince her friend (as this new girl seemed to be).

"Oh, um… hi there…" Well, that definitely was a botch.

The newcomer also chirped a greeting to the other girl (whose name was Alice, he'd learned) who also had some difficulty in responding correctly.

"Who exactly are you, aru?"_ Aru?_ Hong Kong didn't beat around the bush. His first thought was, China? He squinted at the girl, almost seeing but not quite seeing a faint blur around her.

Magic. Being raised by England for the majority for his life (he had come into being to fulfill the treaty formed after the First Opium War), he had grown accustomed to these blatant displays, and needless to say magic influencing such a young body did not always result in normalcy. (He was a "Nation", despite technically being a district… basically, he wasn't a muggle. Or human, for that manner.)

It had gotten to the point where Britain had decided to enroll him at Hogwarts (which was at Scotland's place, but whatever. Still part of the United Kingdom) for the last seven years of his stay, but story for another time.

Was that China's outline he saw but didn't see? China, who was taller than this girl, and thus the astral projection was quite a bit taller than its host, but China nonetheless?

The "aru" should have given it away right when he heard it. But having proof wasn't too much of a bother.

"… you guys get amnesia or something?" Well, "you guys" probably applied to Crystal and Alice, so, no, no amnesia. He wondered what happened to Crystal and Alice, but that was another thing that could be figured out at another time.

"I'm Cyan, like the color!" Cyan blue? That was a pretty bright color. Seemed to fit her personality, though.

"Eh… Sorry Cyan ar – ahem – So, Crystal… How's life…?" That "aru" again. This was definitely China.

"You sound like teacher." He didn't even attempt to be secretive. If it was China (and he was pretty sure it was) then China would understand. If it wasn't, he could blame it on sounding like a teacher outside of school (that he didn't have, but know one needed to know that).

"Teacher? Who's your teacher?" Alice's eyes narrowed with suspicion, though knowing China, this was how he looked when he was upon a conclusion but waiting it out to see if it was right or not.

"Oh, no one…"

"Are you guys practicing being China and Hong Kong again?"

The two fell silent.

"C-China and Hong Kong?" Alice/China spoke first, stumbling over the words. They were both thinking the same thing – how could mortals – common mortals like these – know of their existence? And knowing of them, refer to them so casually? The government officials certainly weren't like that.

They needed excuses. And quick.

"Well… Yeah! We are, aru! We just need to… em… practice some more! Right, Hong Kong, aru?" Extra emphasis on "Hong Kong" and "aru". Practicing, right.

"Y-yeah!" Remembering to emphasize their "characters", he added, "I, like, need to talk to teacher for a while, I'll be right back…" and promptly dragged Alice/China away for a "talk".

* * *

"So, who is she and how does she know me?" The two were located between a large rock and the side of a school building. While hardly the most "private" place, no students were around to hear their conversation. Which was good.

"I don't know! How does she know _me_?!" Yup, definitely China. His teacher hadn't had much tact since the twenty-first century had come along.

Still ranting, China continued to talk, unaware of the secrets he was divulging."You're her friend! Of course she knows you! You should know her too!_ I_ don't even know how I should know her! Of course I don't. Alice is the one who knows her, not me!"

Yeah. Very sneaky, China. There wasn't any flaw in your plans at all. Nope.

Ah, who was he kidding. Bloody wanker, as England liked to say.

After that, they had a not-very-serious discussion confirming that yes, both of them had somehow ended in a teen girl's body. And yes, it was most probably England who did it, but China had no proof and all the info was from Hong Kong. So it was insignificant data.

An interesting thing to note: American education requires you to change into P.E. clothes for your physical education class. Of course, the locker rooms were seperated by genders, though that was exactly what troubled China.

Funny how the oldest of people act the most immature.

* * *

A/N: So this is the second part of the series "Canyontalia" I was doing with Mel Marc, links can be found on my profile shortly after I've uploaded this chapter.

The setting for this story is our middle school (just because it was the easiest setting we could think of, this year being our third here). You want the name of it, you say? Well, wait until the next chapter of AiH/CaC and you'll see if the series name isn't obvious enough.

Let us know if you liked it!


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